Curtis Sliwa was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, on March 26, 1954, into a Catholic family of Polish and Italian origin. He has two younger sisters.

Silwa graduated from Canarsie High School after attending Brooklyn Prep, a Jesuit high school from which he was later expelled.

The activist used to work as a delivery boy for the New York Daily News, where he was named “Newsboy of the Year” and received a trip to the White House after saving many people from a burning building while on a paper route.

Prior to establishing the Guardian Angels, he worked as the night manager of a McDonald’s on Fordham Road in the Bronx.